Death Casts a Spell, Chapter 20

No sooner had Vetrovsky concealed my immobilized body behind the curtain than Arthur came in, bearing Jeannette on his arm. She was wearing rich, crimson robes, the same ones I’d seen Freddie wear during the seance. They gave her an aura of luxuriant grace, but her gleaming hair, hanging free around her shoulders, made her look almost as innocent as a child. I wanted to scream at her to run, but no matter how much I tried, my body stayed motionless.

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Death Casts a Spell

But I wouldn’t be the only silent witness to the atrocity that was about to take place. Koko and Eleanor were still up in the attic, and they would see everything. They’d see Jeannette murdered, and then, once Arthur left, they’d probably see Vetrovsky dispatch me as well. Tears welled in my unblinking eyes. Even if they somehow survived this night, that vision would live with them forever.

“Arthur,” Vetrovsky said, his voice shockingly smooth and silky for someone who had just triumphed in a life-and-death struggle. “I am so glad you have come.” He spread his arms, allowing his purple robes to billow about him, heedless of the scorch marks that had come from snuffing out the burning lamp. He was nothing if not a showman. He sauntered around the room unhurriedly, bringing some of the small lamps to light. I noticed he left several of them dark, the better to conceal my presence.

As the lamps brightened, Jeannette’s golden hair gleamed brighter. Arthur couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Do you—” he ventured. “Do you really think—”

Vetrovsky shut that line down, hard. “The time for thinking is over, Arthur. All is prepared. We have but to make a doorway to the next world, and all your suffering—all of Alice’s suffering—can finally be at an end.”

A tiny line appeared between Jeannette’s eyebrows. This wasn’t the script she was prepared for, and she didn’t see the props she had been expecting—the herbs, the wine. She looked uncertainly from Vetrovsky to Arthur. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Vetrovsky strolled over to her and put his two big hands on her shoulders, so she was encased fully within the circle of his robes. “We are trying something new, my dear.” He steered her to a seat at the table, and she allowed herself to be pressed into it. “Adding a bit of drama to the proceedings, as it were.” He gave her a comforting smile, and she returned a half-hearted smile of her own. Then he raised his hands over his head and began a deep, mellifluous intonation while Jeannette tried hard to look as though all this was normal.

I wanted to scream at her to listen to her instincts. To run. How could she just sit there, when everything about the energy in the room was so deeply disturbing? There was Vetrovsky, with his strange, ominous chant. And then there was Arthur. There was a nervous anticipation simply wafting off him. His cane trembled. His brow was covered in sweat. And through it all, his eyes remained locked on Jeannette, as though she were a lighthouse lighting him home.

I saw Vetrovsky sneak a peek at Arthur out of the corner of his eye, whereupon he evidently decided to cut to the chase. He wanted Arthur mesmerized enough to believe in his magic, but not spooked enough to call it off. He took the gun from his pocket and presented it, with both hands, to Arthur.

The older man took the weapon into his hand and stared at it fixedly. He had been promised the one thing no one else could give him, and now that it was within his grasp, he didn’t have the strength to refuse. He hefted the gun, weighing it in his hand once, twice, three times. Then he pointed it at Jeannette.

Her two blue eyes grew round with horror, and her lips formed a wide, helpless O. Run, I begged her again in my mind. But Jeannette was not running. She was too shocked even to move.

There was a loud, rolling, rumbling sound. It started low, then built into an absolute crescendo of thunder that seemed to be coming from all around us. Arthur’s aim wavered. His eyes darted anxiously at Vetrovsky. “What’s happening?” he said.

Vetrovsky knew exactly what was going on, and so did I. Somebody had found the mechanisms in the theater attic and was using them to create the sound effects Vetrovsky used to supplement his seances. I, of course, knew the identities of the somebodies in question—but Vetrovsky didn’t. His eyes widened enormously, as, one by one, the devices in his parlor came to life.

The thunder kept rolling. Music started, a wild cacophony of discordant notes banged out with wild abandon. Then wind—a hot, scourging gale that whipped Jeannette’s hair about and almost tangled Vetrovsky in his robes. “Shoot her, Arthur!” Vetrovsky cried. “Shoot her now!” He knew he had lost control of the situation, but he wasn’t ready to abandon his plan—not when it was so close to fruition.

Arthur responded automatically to the unyielding authority in Vetrovsky’s showman voice. He aimed at Jeannette again and squinted along the gun’s barrel, but his hand was shaking badly. He dropped his cane and brought his left hand up to steady the weapon.

And that’s when the spirits upstairs really let loose. Objects began to fly around the room: books, vases, and a little brass bell that flew clanging through the air. They whizzed about the room ever faster, making the two men duck to avoid being hit.

“Shoot her!” Vetrovsky shouted again. “Shoot!”

Arthur did. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a brutal report that battered my eardrums. It was immediately followed by a crash. Then silence.

Arthur opened his eyes. Jeannette was still sitting in the chair, unharmed. Her hands were clapped over her ears and her eyes were tightly shut. Vetrovsky stood tall and straight, though some of the confidence of his stage personality had deserted him. Even I was still unscathed, though Arthur’s hands had been shaking so badly, he could easily have hit any of us without trying.

What he had hit, instead, was a vase—a red ceramic globe with a crackly finish. Moments ago, it had been hurtling through the air. Now, Arthur stared at the shards in wonder.

He crouched beside it and picked up one of the pieces. Hanging from it was a thick, black wire.

Arthur passed the shard from hand to hand, staring at it for a long moment. He shifted the gun to his left hand and used his right to sift through the rest of the vase’s wreckage. He found a second wire, the one that must have been attached to the vase’s opposite side.

“Arthur,” Vetrovsky said sharply. But Arthur wasn’t listening. He fingered the thick, black wire, weighing it in his hand. Then he reached out for his cane, and used it to lever himself to his feet. He picked his way across the room, examining everything in turn. He found another vase and a book, both strung on wires. With trembling fingers, he reached out for the crystal ball at the center of the table. He tried to lift it, but it didn’t budge. It was fastened to the table. Then, with a sudden snarl, he lifted his silver-topped cane and brought it down on the ball. It shattered. Glass sprayed everywhere, and Vetrovsky and Jeannette both flinched away.

Arthur reached into the ruins of the crystal ball and brought up a fragment. It was the coiled filament from an ordinary, incandescent bulb.

He turned on Vetrovsky. “It was all an act?” he said.

Vetrovsky didn’t answer. Arthur advanced on him. “An illusion,” he said. “A con.” His face contorted as he realized that the crime he had almost committed would have been for nothing. He shook his head, then stood up straight and tall, putting himself between Jeannette and Vetrovsky. He returned the gun to his right hand and pointed it at Vetrovsky. This time it didn’t waver.

“Get out,” he said.

Vetrovsky was a great showman, and he knew when to make an exit. He ran out of the parlor so fast that his turban fell off behind him. It came to rest only a foot from my staring eyes, and the great diamond at the brow seemed to wink at me. It looked to be nothing more than paste.